Coloured light #photography

Photography is about capturing light and it comes in lots of different wavelengths that we see as colours. Coloured light at events like shows can bathe our subject in a haze of colour like in this image.

Purple hair

In this picture, my subject, a Rod Stewart tribute act, has purple hair from the lighting. It could be pink hair, I am a bit colour blind on that colour. I can’t tell the difference!

I took this photo at the carnival on Saturday and this is one of the better ones. Many of the shots had a grey tinge to them because the sky was grey. That is a different coloured light. Everything reflects light and can change its wavelength. I think te yellow tee-shirt made this shot better.

When the light isn’t good I try to go for close-up shots using a wide aperture. On Saturday, I raised the ISO to 400 for nearly all the shots.

Coloured light – fluorescent

For this shot, I not only had low light but fluorescent light which was quite harsh so I used my flash. It’s a professional Speedlight that is controlled through the lens (TTL) and worked quite well. The coloured light of the midday sun tends to be very harsh too and I have coped with that by fitting a warming filter.

The light from incandescent lamps is preferable to fluorescent and the natural light from the sun in the early morning or late afternoon can be quite a warm light, but there are more shadows.

I shot this landscape close to midday and the light was quite harsh. I had to select my shots and try not to shoot towards the sun. The coloured light changes all the time in different situations and at different times of the day. The amount of light is always something to be considered but the quality of light is important too.

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